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‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Living in such close proximity to him is bound to …’
‘Change the way you feel about him?’ Nigel suggested, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think you honestly believe that, do you, Tam?’
‘Stranger things have been known to happen.’
But she knew that Nigel was right and that living in the same house as Zach was more likely to deepen her love than wither it. If contempt and dislike had not killed it, what possible chance had a tepid thing like familiarity?
CHAPTER NINE
‘THIS will be your room—it has its own bathroom, and the Colonel is just down the corridor.’
Johnson was showing Tamara to her bedroom. He had greeted her on her arrival at the house with the information that Zach had gone into Gloucester on business but that he would return shortly.
The bedroom he showed her to was comfortably furnished with delicate French Empire furniture and a soft pearl grey carpet. The bathroom off it repeated the grey and pink colour scheme of the bedroom, and although the decor and soft furnishings had a faintly old-fashioned air, it was plain that they were of excellent quality.
Tamara suspected that the tenants had been an older couple, and this was borne out by Mrs Wilkes when she brought her a tray of tea ten minutes later.
‘I don’t normally come in unless the Colonel is having guests for dinner, but he asked me special like, seeing as this is your first day.’
And Mrs Wilkes had jumped at the chance of discovering what the newcomer was like, Tamara guessed, smiling her thanks.
‘So you’re going to help the Colonel with his book,’ she pronounced, plainly reluctant to leave before her curiosity had been satisfied. ‘All agog, everyone round here was when he inherited the estate. Plans to turn the old house into a centre for wayward boys. That won’t go down too well with some, but then live and let live, that’s what I always say,’ she added virtuously, her arms folded over her ample form. ‘Think you’ll like it down here, do you? The Colonel’s a fine-looking man,’ she added.
‘This tea is delicious, Mrs Wilkes,’ Tamara praised, sidestepping the questions. ‘Just what I needed, but you mustn’t spoil me like this …’
‘Oh, the Colonel’s asked me to come in every day while you’re here, miss,’ the housekeeper surprised Tamara by saying. ‘Says you’ll be too busy to stop and prepare meals,’ she added. ‘Seems like you’ll be working morning, noon and night.’
‘My firm is anxious to get the Colonel’s book into production,’ Tamara explained briefly, ‘and as my boss is away at the moment I’m here to help where I can.’
‘Brought your own typewriter with you, so Johnson says.’
‘Yes, it’s upstairs in my room.’
‘I doubt you’ll need it. The Colonel’s had a fine new electric machine installed in the library for you.’
Zachary arrived while Tamara was still unpacking. She had brought with her the new clothes she had bought for work—trim suits, neat skirts and blouses. Although many of the girls wore jeans for work, she could still not bring herself to totally throw off the habits instilled by Aunt Lilian, and the thought of wearing anything as casual as jeans for work was not her style. She had brought a pair with her, though—tossed into her case at the last minute in case she got the opportunity to explore the grounds. Zach had talked about working in the evening, but surely he didn’t intend to work every evening?
Tamara acknowledged that she was deliberately dawdling over the last of her unpacking because she was reluctant to face him, but at last the moment could be put off no longer. She paused, staring at her refl
ection in the mirror. As yet there was no hint of her pregnancy in her wand-slim body—if anything she had lost weight—but there was a new glossiness to her hair, a subtle rounding of her face and luminescence to her complexion.
Her outfit was another of her new ones, a pale blue skirt with a elasticated waist, and buttons down the front. With it she was wearing a white tee-shirt with a pretty blue butterfly motif. The outfit had been bought from a High Street chain store, but it looked attractive and fresh and was a world away from the dull repressed clothes she had chosen before she met Zach.
Unaware of the fragile vulnerability of her face, she went downstairs head held high, ready to face her tormentor.
Johnson was in the hall and he directed her to the library-cum-study. Tamara knocked and walked in. For a long moment there was complete silence while Zachary studied her slender body, and then with several lithe strides he was at her side, pulling from her hair the pins with which she had secured it on a last-minute impulse.
‘Never let me see you with your hair screwed up like that again,’ he demanded sharply. ‘I may not be your fiancé, with all the privileges that the word implies, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit opposite you day after day with your hair forced into a bun like a schoolmarm!’
‘It’s tidier like that,’ Tamara lied evenly, despising herself for the hurried jump her heart had given at his reference to her hair.
‘Maybe so, but don’t be tempted to wear it like that again, otherwise I might just show you how untidy it could be. Come here, I want to show you something.’
For a moment his abrupt change of front startled her, but when he frowned she hurried to his side, staring in some dismay at the keyboard and V.D.U. unit arranged on a low desk.
‘The latest word processor,’ he told her, bending over the machine, to switch it on. ‘Let me show you how it works.’
Forced into such close proximity, Tamara could smell the clean fragrance of his cologne, her senses responding immediately to the heat she could feel coming off his body. He was dressed casually in jeans and a checked shirt, stretched across the hard muscles of his back, the sunlight streaming in through the window dancing on the polished bones of his face.
